Nvidia driver in LM 21 and LMDE 5

[Nicki]

LM 21 and LMDE 5 is a bad distro.

In LM 20.3 there is a possibility to change hardware drivers on the graphic card to Nvidia.
There you can make it in the control panel.
But in LM 21 and LMDE 5 it's impossible to change drivers. Why?
I have followed a lot of tips in the forum, but no one has worked for me. It gave me a system crash only.
Now I'm back in LM 20.3 and the life goes on as before.
Please do something about that bug in LM 21.

Nicki

[autodctr]

What nVidia card are you using?

[SMG]

LM 21 and LMDE 5 is a bad distro.

In LM 20.3 there is a possibility to change hardware drivers on the graphic card to Nvidia.
There you can make it in the control panel.
But in LM 21 and LMDE 5 it's impossible to change drivers. Why?

It is possible your hardware is now too old to be supported with newer versions of the operating system. It may be that that open-source driver is the only one available for your GPU. What GPU does your system have?

[antikythera]

It is not impossible to change the nvidia driver in LMDE5, you just don't have the driver manager to hold your hand (which in itself is actually for the best as it can recommend the wrong driver sometimes)

Like SMG alluded to though, your hardware is no longer supported by proprietary drivers if it uses the nvidia 340.XX.X driver. This was not Mint or Ubuntu's choice, NVIDIA dropped that already very long in the tooth driver branch so it's code is no longer compatible after Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Debian 10.

[Nicki]

Output:
olle@desktop:~$ nvidia-detect
Detected NVIDIA GPUs:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation G86 [Quadro NVS 290] [10de:042f] (rev a1)

Checking card: NVIDIA Corporation G86 [Quadro NVS 290] (rev a1)
Your card is only supported by the 340 legacy drivers series, which is only available up to buster.
olle@desktop:~$

When I went back to LM 20.3, there was no problem to change to Nvidia driver i control panel.
I had the option to choose Nvidia (recommended).
So the driver is still in Mint repos and should not depend on old hardware.
Yes my computer is not the newest one. It's about 10 years old. But why should it be a problem to get old drivers to work on old hardware.
This is more like Windows who will not give back compatibility over 10 year.

Anyway, Linux Mint is one of the best distro. It works out of the box. Sound, WiFi and graphic are no problem. Except in LM 21 and LMDE 5.

Thanks for your comments
Nicki

[SMG]

So the driver is still in Mint repos and should not depend on old hardware.

It's only in the repos for the specific versions of Mint for which it works.

The Nvidia driver files must work with the system files. If you change the operating system version (by upgrading to LMDE5 or LM21), then you have changed the system files.

How is Nvidia supposed to work with new system files if there is no upgrade to the Nvidia driver? The answer is it can not.

[Hoser Rob]

... Linux Mint is one of the best distro. It works out of the box...

Yes, Mint is one of the best, but no Linux distro is going to be guaranteed to work OOTB on everything. This thread proves that, doesn't it?

Truth is, that card is at least a dozen years old, and nivdia doesn't support it any more. A quick search tells me that the nvidia 340.x driver, the newest one supporting that card, isn't going to work on any kernels after 5.4. Which is what you had with Mint 20.x.

LMDE 5 is based on Debian 11 (Bullseye). I don't use LMDE but my main Linux box runs MX 21 KDE, also based on Bullseye. It comes with a (mainline, non Ubuntu) 5.10 series kernel. So the situation is the same there.

Seems to me that you're going to have to either use the open source driver (nouveau) in Mint 21 or do a clean reinstall of Mint 20.

[Nicki]

I made a fresh install of LM 20.3. I couldn't stand with LM 21 and "nouveau". The screen couldn't get higher resolution than 1024 x 768.
Now I can get up to 1920 x 1200. That is great difference. And now I have kernel 5.4.0-124.

As you told me, I can't have higher kernel than 5.4. This means that I'm stuck to LM 20.3 and have to live with this until April 2025.
After that I must buy me a new computer. It's no meaning to only change the graphic card then. Otherwise I have no updates.
Maybe try another distro.

Thanks
Nicki

[antikythera]

Maybe try another distro.

Thanks
Nicki

That won't help apart from maybe manjaro but don't expect the driver to be ready for you to install, you will have to compile them:

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/howto-get-l ... back/46969

[SMG]

I made a fresh install of LM 20.3. I couldn't stand with LM 21 and "nouveau". The screen couldn't get higher resolution than 1024 x 768.
Now I can get up to 1920 x 1200. That is great difference. And now I have kernel 5.4.0-124.

As you told me, I can't have higher kernel than 5.4. This means that I'm stuck to LM 20.3 and have to live with this until April 2025.

Maybe by then there will be updates to the nouveau driver and it will work better for you.

[newgreen]

I agree with many of the points of the original poster and more!

I also upgraded from LM20.3 (kernel 5.4.0-124) to LM21 on my older HP laptop, only to find that NVIDIA 340 drivers where not available for install in the driver manager. On LM21 with nouveau drivers, opening of Firefox was slow, basic browsing on YouTube froze the laptop and needed a hard reset to unfreeze. I reverted back to 20.3 with Timeshift and wasted a bunch of time. Will stay with 20.3 until 2025. (incidentally, after reverting back with TimeShift, I had no Ethernet, had to follow instructions from another poster to resolve the issue (to do with TimeShift not restoring 2 files). Browsing TimeShift for following 2 files and overwriting the ones in the system with the ones in TimeShift fixed the Ethernet problem (I had to restart for changes to take effect).
/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/netplan
/usr/lib/netplan/generate

I'm getting the impression, that many in the Linux community are very accepting of the idea of having to retire a perfectly good older laptop and get something new just so it can fully function with the latest kernel and LM21. I distinctly recall so many touting the benefit of Linux because it works on older computers. I hope that we don't have Linux fan boys come to the defense of the current trajectory without a serious look at how the NVIDIA driver issues can be resolved. There are too many older computers out there with NVIDIA cards.

1) I wonder if It would be possible to buy the code from NVIDIA and incorporate it in the latest kernels (doesn't Microsoft have it's financial hand in The Linux Foundation?)
2) Try and have NVIDIA release the code as open source for their older drivers (they don't support them anymore, why are they holding on to the code? what are they going to do with it? most new low-end PC's come with integrated Intel graphics not NVIDIA.
3) Work to improve the nouveau drivers so the actually function properly with full hardware acceleration on older NVIDIA cards
4) Continue support for kernel 5.4 beyond 2025

Failing all of the above and having to buy a new laptop, it will be sayonara to Linux for many average users. I can't see any reason for an average Windows user to switch to Linux. Many of the software on Linux is currently available on Windows (Libre Office, Firefox, OBS, Thuderbird Mail, Okular, Inkscape, Gimp, KdenLive, etc. Why bother to switch to Linux? to have hardware issues?

Finally, as long as the current situation stands, on the LM21 release note, the team needs to add a prominent note about older PC with 340/390 NVIDIA drivers to warn them that this version may not be suitable for them and to discourage them from upgrading.

[SMG]

I agree with many of the points of the original poster and more!

This is a support topic which means posts are supposed to help the user resolve their issue. If you wish to have a general discussion of Nvidia driver support, please create a new topic in the Chat about Linux Mint or Chat about Linux forums (whichever you feel is most appropriate).

Many people with older Nvidia GPUs were upset when LM20 came out because it no longer supported the Nvidia-304 driver so your dissatisfaction that LM21 no longer supports the Nvidia-340 is not a new phenomena.

It is not a goal or focus of Linux-based distros to keep old hardware running.

Finally, as long as the current situation stands, on the LM21 release note, the team needs to add a prominent note about older PC with 340/390 NVIDIA drivers to warn them that this version may not be suitable for them and to discourage them from upgrading.

The Nvidia-390 driver is still supported by Nvidia and is receiving quarterly updates through the end of 2022 so your "warning" is not appropriate. The Nvidia-340's last update was December 2019. Please review Nvidia's Support timeframes for Unix legacy GPU releases.

[antikythera]

the Linux Mint team should include a prominent note about the loss of key hardware support in their release note, being the Kernel is upgraded to the latest version in LM21

Covered:

Other issues

Linux Mint 21 is based on Ubuntu 22.04. Make sure to read the Ubuntu release notes.

Choosing the right version of Linux Mint

Each new version comes with a new kernel and a newer set of drivers. Most of the time, this means newer versions are compatible with a larger variety of hardware components, but sometimes it might also introduce regressions. If you are facing hardware issues with the latest version of Linux Mint and you are unable to solve them, you can always try an earlier release. If that one works better for you, you can stick to it, or you can use it to install Linux Mint and then upgrade to the newer release.

https://linuxmint.com/rel_vanessa_cinnamon.php

[SMG]

Moderator note: Post violating forum rules has been removed from the topic.

[sylwiusz]

Hi, have you tried to use 340.x drivers compiled for a newer kernels from this PPA?
https://launchpad.net/%7Ekelebek333/+ar ... dia-legacy